Oolong: am I a joke to you?

He’s been asked this in interviews tho, here’s what he said:

Question: In the beginning of Dragon Ball, there are many animal-headed people — panda people, crocodile people, cow people, cat people, etc. — in the backgrounds. But, by the end of the series, there are almost no animal-headed people. Was this a result of the increasing “seriousness” of the story?

Toriyama: It could be the seriousness, but it’s probably that I’d forgotten by the end to include them. In the beginning I was still working under the after-effects of Dr. Slump.